Conservative Columnist Calls For Palin To Drop Out

If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream â away from Sarah Palin.

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president â and possibly president â is to risk being labeled anti-woman.

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick â what a difference a financial crisis makes â and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As weâve seen and heard more from John McCainâs running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesnât know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistanâs president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)

And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And sheâs had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).

Finally, Palinâs narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCainâs running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood â a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

Palin didnât make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palinâs recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, Iâve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. Iâve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and thereâs not much content there. Hereâs but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: âWell, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that weâre talking about today. And thatâs something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.â

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obamaâs numbers, Palin blustered wordily: âIâm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see whoâs more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and whoâs actually done it?â

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, weâd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because sheâs a woman â and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket â we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain canât repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOPâs unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Palin didnât make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palinâs recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, Iâve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. Iâve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obamaâs numbers, Palin blustered wordily: âIâm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see whoâs more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and whoâs actually done it?â

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, weâd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because sheâs a woman â and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket â we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

Obama is a true fairy. He has the best advisors in the world and won't take sides or offer a plan. What a complete fricken loser. This is his moment - the moment to become world leader for 8 years - and look at at him.. He sucks so bad he is really pissing me off. He has the brain power and the clout. All he needs is the backbone to put a plan together. We need a plan from him more than we need him to be a weak assed president.

Get some sack Obama and get it soon.

Biden - he is palin with restored hair and bigger teeth. He is wrong far more often than right - so who needs his experience. I know lets divide Iraq in 3. I know lets run for president and copy our speeches from a guy in England. We need him as VP like we need Palin.

He has the hall mark of a true leader. Stand aside and let those doing the job.....do their job.

without interfering like the idiot McCain.

There is no reason for him to "propose a bailout" because he is NOT privy to the same information that the SITTING PRESIDENT is privy to.

Any plan based on incomplete information will lead to half-witted, half-baked, asinine policy.

Which is best left to the likes of Bush and McCain.

Quote from jem:

Everyday I find myself screaming for Romney with a plan.

McCain and Palin are idots so I expect nothing from them.

Obama is a true fairy. He has the best advisors in the world and won't take sides or offer a plan. What a complete fricken loser. This is his moment - the moment to become world leader for 8 years - and look at at him.. He sucks so bad he is really pissing me off. He has the brain power and the clout. All he needs is the backbone to put a plan together. We need a plan from him more than we need him to be a weak assed president.

Get some sack Obama and get it soon.

Biden - he is palin with restored hair and bigger teeth. He is wrong far more often than right - so who needs his experience. I know lets divide Iraq in 3. I know lets run for president and copy our speeches from a guy in England. We need him as VP like we need Palin.

I negotiate these liens almost everyday.
1st liens are worth 40-70 cents on the dollars. They could have a higher hold to maturity.

Seconds in Florida and CA rarely have any value. I have compromised 150,000 dollar seconds for 1500 bucks. Because in CA the borrowers do not have to pay seconds and the seconds only recourse is to foreclose. But they would have to pay off the first to foreclose.

Consequently paying 700 b for this shit won't help anyone. The problem is 4-10 trillion. You can't improve the risk of these lenders - they are dead toast - upside down.

You want to ease the credit crunch. Back the borrowers.
Right now the housing market is split in two ends. Lower priced houses are selling like hot cakes in CA. Borrowers can get fha guaranteed loans and it is to find them loans. Why - because the borrowers are backed by the govt.

You want people to lend... back the borrower.

If we want to invest 700b lets embark and a USA infrastructure building program. That money would have an multiplier effect, or at least back borrowers.

And here's a liberal columnist on how McCain blew a non-brainer chance to win the debate and probably the Presidency:

CounterPunch Diary
How McCain Blew It
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

In whatever years remain to him â and the health prognoses for McCain are cloudy at best â McCain should look back at the 48 hours up to and including Friday nightâs debate in Mississippi as the Rubicon he was too frightened to cross. He spurned a huge chance to turn the tables on his all-too-decorous opponent.

McCain should have furiously denounced the bailout. There was no ideological impediment, since the Arizona senator has no firm convictions beyond the precepts of his bankrollers â which can be quickly summed up as: less taxes for the rich. Everything else, the thundering about earmarks, the calls for an abolition of âcost plusâ in defense contracting (actually, a truly radical proposition if McCain believed a word of it), is hot air.

A McCain âNoâ to bailout would have put Obama in a difficult position, exposing the timidity of his own posture, and leaving him with the options of continuing as Wall Streetâs errand boy, his role to date, or if he tried to outflank McCain from the left, as a wild-eyed radical.

But McCainâs nerve failed him. In the opening exchanges of the debate even the sedate Jim Lehrer became impatient as McCain and Obama fled the all important matter of the economic crisis and the proposed bailout and retreated into campaign boilerplate about earmarks and tax cuts. Sacrifices? It should not have been hard for Obama to say, right up front in stentorian tones, âYou ask, Senator McCain, what I propose to cut in this hour of crisis. John, I propose to cut the war in Iraq. Hereâs what it has cost to dateâ¦â Long minutes went by before he even touched on this issue.

Weirdly, McCain refused to look at Obama. It was a big mistake. A couple of straw polls from CNN and CBS right after the debate called it for Obama. In the CNN poll âundecidedâ women and older people plumped solidly for Obama. Itâs in these sectors that the race will be won.

Iâll bet that a lot of those pro-Obama votes from women stem from McCainâs inability to look Obama in the eye. How many women have had to put up with that crap from sulky male spouses and partners? Ask Cindy. Ask any woman.

The biggest win Friday night was for dullness. The two candidates trudged through their dutiful exchanges with even more tedium than the chorus in a Greek tragedy hashing over the whims of fate.

The post-match analysts said that McCain seemed asleep at the wheel during the initial exchanges on the economy, the $700 billion bailout proposed by the Fed and the Treasury, but got snappier when the topic shifted to Iraq and Iran.

Indeed it was clear McCain had forfeited his best shot at turning the tables on Obama the moment he declared that he would vote for the $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street proposed by Bernanke at the Fed and the US Treasury Secretary Paulson and endorsed by President Bush.

The bailout is hugely unpopular across the United States. In the past four days Iâve not been in a cash register line in any supermarket where vivid denunciations of Wall Street havenât mingled with sarcasms about the tycoonsâ hirelings in Congress now trying to commit taxpayersâ money to bail out their losses. All this while the hoppers riffle through the National Enquirer for news of Sarah Palinâs love life and about the Youtube films of Bristol.

Every politician in Congress is being told by their office staffs that phone calls are running at least 90 to 10 against the bailout. This is why the Republicans in Congress have found it east to resist the frantic appeals of Paulson, formerly of Goldman Sachs, and instead to say No, leaving the Democrats to whinge and trim, with half-hearted âconditionsâ attached to the bail-out and fake populist squeaks about reducing executive compensation. Will the Democrats also demand that the tycoons surrender all the money they stand to make if a bailout sends the value of their stock holdings soaring? I donât think I see the bankersâ whore, Senator Charles Schumer, insisting on that.

Last Wednesday McCain woke up to a thunderbolt crashing into his campaign hq. It arrived in the form of a Washington Post-ABC poll reporting showing that for the first time, among likely voters, Obama was leading McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent. A week earlier the race had been even. This sudden crushing lead told McCain and his campaign managers that the âPalin bounceâ had evaporated. The worst financial crisis since the Depression had taken center stage and the voters were clearly assessing McCain as being out of touch.